Well Met
by schweinsty
Summary: 20 facts about Ukitake and Isane's relationship. Fluff, mostly. Mildly implied Shunsui/Nanao.


Disclaimer: I own neither Bleach nor the characters therein.

A.N: I honestly don't know why I paired these two - maybe it's the hair? It just seemed like fun. Well, please enjoy :). Reviews are appreciated.

Well Met: 20 Facts About Ukitake and Isane's Relationship

1. Abstract

The first conversation they had was about whether the stars you saw from Seireitei were the same stars you saw from the living world. Isane was on her forty-sixth hour working in the healing ward, and Ukitake was in so much pain he couldn't think straight. Afterwards, Ukitake always connected stargazing with the touch of her hand putting damp cloths on his forehead.

2. Candid

When they first started talking, Ukitake found it difficult to bring her out of her shell when there were others around. So he was particularly gratified when, after Shunsui had spent the better part of an hour teasing her, Isane looked at the captain and asked, sweetly, how Nanao's dinner with Hisagi Shuuhei had gone.

Shunsui didn't tease her for a full two weeks after that.

3. Apathy

After she moved into his quarters (captain's quarters were bigger and located in a quieter section), Ukitake and Isane discovered that twice as many people seemed to generate four times as much dust.

They didn't mind, though, and kept to their regular cleaning schedule. After all, they saw blood and death on a daily basis: dust bunnies had nothing on them.

4. Affinity

Ukitake loved his swords. When he wielded them, they felt like extensions of his arms, natural, and when he fought with them he felt like he could never die.

There were only two things that could pull him away in the middle of training: Shunsui inviting him to have a drink, and Isane telling him he shouldn't overexert himself. She never interrupted his training otherwise.

5. Ramification

They were walking through the merchant's district when he saw the red kimono hanging outside a shop. He told her he thought she would look nice in that color. He thought her blush was due to the compliment.

Only later did he realize it was a wedding garment.

6. Acumen

Isane was not a genius like Hitsugaya, but she had very good judgment when it came to people. Most people dismissed Shunsui out of hand when they met him: Isane listened to him talk about Nanao-chan for an hour and later told Ukitake he was lucky to have such a good friend.

Ukitake was happy for her insight until the first day he tried to hide how sick he was feeling. He never tried that again.

7. Acrimonious

Ukitake thought that Aizen Sousuke was the only person Isane hated until they had to go to Mayuri's lab for a meeting. He could have cut the air between them with a butter knife, and Isane spent the rest of the evening practicing offensive kidou loudly in the thirteenth's training grounds. Apparently, Mayuri had made a few 'tweaks' to Nemu so she would be more useful when he took her to Hueco Mundo.

8. Abject

There were some days, when his illness was so bad he could barely breathe past the blood in his lungs, Ukitake would lie in bed and watch her worry over him, and the pain he knew he was causing her hurt more than the coughing.

9. Embryonic

Their first supper together was rather awkward; Isane kept calling him 'taicho,' and he couldn't think of a topic that she would be interested in discussing. It wasn't until she accidentally set his hair on fire with a candle that they got comfortable.

10. Abstinence

Sometimes Ukitake couldn't help but wish he were as healthy – and as lazy – as Shunsui. It was difficult enough to find time to spend with Isane without his health problems intruding. The sex, though wonderful, did not happen nearly as often as either of them would have liked.

But every time Ukitake would stop the thought before he could finish it. Shunsui, without Isane – wasn't half as lucky as he.

11. Hegemony

Having been made a captain over sixteen hundred years before he met Isane, Ukitake was accustomed to being in charge, to having power over hundreds of men. But whenever he was sick, Isane went from quiet vice-captain to competent healer, and there was no question of who was in charge then.

Ukitake liked that very much.

12. Apocalypse

"You can't beat him, can you?"

Ukitake wrapped his arms more tightly around her stomach and slid his thumb across the curve of her breast. Beat Aizen, with his health, now…

"Probably not. Maybe Shunsui and I together. But by myself – no."

"You'll fight him anyway, won't you?"

Ukitake brushed his lips against her hair and breathed in deeply. She smelled like his medication.

"It's a war," he said, and that said it all.

"Just be careful," she said, and put her hands over his. "It doesn't have to be the end."

13. Inhibitory

Few people saw past Isane's initial shyness. They thought she was perfectly suited for the fourth division. Ukitake knew better; though she was talented at kidou, there were few situations in the fourth that let her live up her full potential.

She might have been shy and quiet in real life, but she was a spitfire on the training grounds.

14. Promulgate

They tried keeping things quiet at first; Shunsui knew, and Unohana had no doubt noticed her vice-captain's sudden interest in doing Ukitake's check-ups, but besides them no one else had the slightest idea, and Ukitake and Isane preferred that it stay that way.

And then one morning they were walking by the pond in the thirteenth's headquarters, and Ukitake had put his hand around her waist, when Kusajishi Yachiru shunpoed onto the dock, dropped a giant carp into the water, and smiled at them blindingly before she shunpoed away again.

The news was around Seireitei before lunchtime.

15. Oblique

They weren't interested in each other, not at first. Ukitake thought of her as nothing more than the very young, tall, and efficient vice-captain he ran into every once in a while, while Isane was intimidated by his rank and demeanor.

It took many conversations before they realized that there were never any awkward silences between them.

16. Indefatigable

It took some time for Isane to accept his advances. So long that Shunsui would often joke that it Ukitake would be as old as Yamato before they so much as had dinner together. Ukitake would quietly reply that, if he got desperate enough, perhaps he should start calling her 'his dearest Isane-chan.'

In the end, all it took Ukitake spending two weeks in the 4th division after getting stabbed in the shoulder by an espada.

He was quite happy he got to spend more time with her, but he wondered if there might not have been an easier way. Getting stabbed might have been effective, but it was not particularly comfortable.

17. Cognoscente

It was not for nothing that Ukitake had been Kyouraku Shunsui's best friend for well over fifteen centuries. He had quite a fine appreciation of women and was considered a very eligible bachelor by most of the members in the Shinigami Women's Association.

Not one of them, coincidentally, held a candle to Isane.

18. Destitute

He was so used to it being him on the sickbed with her at his side that it never occurred to him to wonder what it would be like if their positions were reversed until she was brought back from Hueco Mundo, not quite as whole as she had been when she'd left.

It left him feeling – empty and disoriented, like his heart had been scrambled around and his guts had been ripped out.

19. Wanton

For all that he loved her personality and her conversation, he adored her legs. Long and lithe, the types of legs that seemed to start and go, go, go on for miles. He had never thought he would find

Isane, for her part, thought his hair was beautiful. Several times he had woken in the morning to find her fingers knotted in it, silver locks clutched tightly in her hands as tightly as she held her sword.

They were very well suited for each other.

20. Rudimentary

There were no guarantees that they – or that Kurosaki boy – were going to beat Aizen.

There were no guarantees that any of them would survive from any given hour to the next.

There were no guarantees that Ukitake's illness wouldn't kill him any day.

There were no guarantees that they would have a future; the only guarantee was that they had each other, for now.

Most days, that was all they needed.


End file.
